We're not in Kansas anymore
As with all epic journeys in life, my road to Grinnell was full of forks and detours. For instance, about 30 minutes from Des Moines, a polite highway patrolman waved all of us travellers off I-35 due to a large disastrous pile-up a few miles up the road. Needless to say, I had to take a slight detour through the scenic villages and shantytowns of wealthy upper-class Iowans. At least I assume they were well off; where I’m from people are rich if they have a $60,000 car they only drive when it’s sunny. These Iowans almost all had million dollar harvesters that they drive once a year. Thinking about that drive now, I think that Iowa is a lot like Texas; however, here everything is cornier instead of bigger.
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Battling the East Campus complex
A group of squirrels greeted me during my first day back at Grinnell, but that was about it. The number of students I saw on the next day was countable on one hand. As I rearranged the things in my room, I asked myself, “Where did everyone go?” Then I reminded myself that I was an essential student of the most essential kind: an SA, so I was here two weeks before all regular returning students.
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First-year no longer
After spending three hours post-plane ride at the lovely Iowa airport and snickering behind my book at all the first years asking each other questions about Grinnell while we waited for the shuttle, I was feeling pretty snobby and sarcastic as I’d already managed to find something to bitch about within the first minutes of my arrival in sticky Iowa. By the time I’d managed to haul my three bulky bags from Darby to Cleveland third, the inner bitterness and questioning began to set in: why doesn’t this god damn school care enough about me to hire a team of monkeys to carry my bags for me? Jen Krohn must be behind this! And so on.
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Naked antics
So here I am, standing bare-ass naked in front of a filled auditorium of my peers, classmates and future friends. Surrounding me is a very sketchy-looking group of men covering their junk with as little as a pair of boxers. With the crowd hootin’ and hollerin’ at my adrenaline-filled body, I wonder how I got here. Was it the rum at the $lum or peer pressure from fellow runners that was having such a negative effect on my judgment? Surely, it must be something more.
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Phooey to change
For a year now, I have had a sinking suspicion that I might be getting old, mainly for the reason that I am more likely to watch a movie and fall asleep after one glass of wine than I am to shake my ass at Harris all weekend. Even worse, I get excited about trips to Wal-Mart and count the number of friends getting married on two hands. But now that I am facing my senior year square on, my status has been confirmed. I am full-fledged old.
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Searching for answers and finding silence
My immersion back into Grinnell culture was facilitated by a trip I made at the end of the summer with other Grinnellians to Taizé, a French monastery known for its song worship. This experience allowed me to focus my personal thoughts, reflect upon my summer and prepare for returning to campus; it answered many of my spiritual questions.
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A calmer second half
Looking around my room, I realize one big difference that the third-year carries in comparison to the previous two: in both my first and second years I was so hyper upon returning to school that my energy spilled over into the unpacking process. By the second day every knick-knack would be in its place, while the posters would be in their final positions by day four. Things are different this year. The state of the room only started to bother me when my dust allergies kicked in, and the posters are due to be up by mid-September, just like Building D on East Campus. And, of course, we all know what that deadline really means, so it’s quite possible that the barren walls will become my interior design statement for the year.
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